There was a stir around the prosecutor’s table and Jennifer looked up to see District Attorney Di Silva taking his place at the table next to a battery of assistants. He looked at Jennifer and smiled. Jennifer felt a growing sense of panic.
A court officer said, “All rise,” and Judge Lawrence Waldman entered from the judge’s robing room.
“Hear ye, Hear ye. All people having business with Part Thirty-seven of this Court, draw near, give your attention and you shall be heard. The Honorable Justice Lawrence Waldman presiding.”
The only one who refused to stand was Abraham Wilson. Jennifer whispered out of the corner of her mouth, “Stand up!”
“Fuck ‘em, baby. They gonna have to come and drag me up.”
Jennifer took his giant hand in hers. “On your feet, Abraham. We’re going to beat them.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then slowly got to his feet, towering over her.
Judge Waldman took his place on the bench. The spectators resumed their seats. The court clerk handed a court calendar to the judge.
“The People of the State of New York versus Abraham Wilson, charged with the murder of Raymond Thorpe.”
Jennifer’s instinct normally would have been to fill the jury box with Blacks, but because of Abraham Wilson she was not so sure. Wilson was not one of them. He was a renegade, a killer, “a disgrace to their race.” They might convict him more readily than would whites. All Jennifer could do was try to keep the more obvious bigots off the jury. But bigots did not go around advertising. They would keep quiet about their prejudices, waiting to get their vengeance.
By late afternoon of the second day, Jennifer had used up her ten peremptory challenges. She felt that her voir dire—the questioning of the jurors—was clumsy and awkward, while Di Silva’s was smooth and skillful. He had the knack of putting the jurors at ease, drawing them into his confidence, making friends of them.
How could I have forgotten what a good actor Di Silva is? Jennifer wondered.
Di Silva did not exercise his peremptory challenges until Jennifer had exhausted hers, and she could not understand why. When she discovered the reason, it was too late. Di Silva had outsmarted her. Among the final prospective jurors questioned were a private detective, a bank manager and the mother of a doctor—all of them Establishment—and there was nothing now that Jennifer could do to keep them off the jury. The District Attorney had sandbagged her.
Robert Di Silva rose to his feet and began his opening statement.
“If it please the court”—he turned to the jury—“and you ladies and gentlemen of the jury, first of all I would like to thank you for giving up your valuable time to sit in this case.” He smiled sympathetically. “I know what a disruption jury service can be. You all have jobs to get back to, families needing your attention.”
It’s as though he’s one of them, Jennifer thought, the thirteenth juror.
“I promise to take up as little of your time as possible. This is really a very simple case. That’s the defendant sitting over there—Abraham Wilson. The defendant is accused by the State of New York of murdering a fellow inmate at Sing Sing Prison, Raymond Thorpe. There’s no doubt that he did. He’s admitted it. Mr. Wilson’s attorney is going to plead self-defense.”
The District Attorney turned to look at the huge figure of Abraham Wilson, and the eyes of the jurors automatically followed him. Jennifer could see the reactions on their faces. She forced herself to concentrate on what District Attorney Di Silva was saying.
“A number of years ago twelve citizens, very much like yourselves, I am sure, voted to put Abraham Wilson away in a penitentiary. Because of certain legal technicalities, I am not permitted to discuss with you the crime that Abraham Wilson committed. I can tell you that that jury sincerely believed that locking Abraham Wilson up would prevent him from committing any further crimes. Tragically, they were wrong. For even locked away, Abraham Wilson was able to strike, to kill, to satisfy the blood lust in him. We know now, finally, that there is only one way to prevent Abraham Wilson from killing again. And that is to execute him. It won’t bring back the life of Raymond Thorpe, but it can save the lives of other men who might otherwise become the defendant’s next victims.”
Di Silva walked along the jury box, looking each juror in the eye. “I told you that this case won’t take up much of your time. I’ll tell you why I said that. The defendant sitting over there—Abraham Wilson—murdered a man in cold blood. He has confessed to the killing. But even if he had not confessed, we have witnesses who saw Abraham Wilson commit that murder in cold blood. More than a hundred witnesses, in fact.
“Let us examine the phrase, ‘in cold blood.’ Murder for any reason is as distasteful to me as I know it is to you. But sometimes murders are committed for reasons we can at least understand. Let’s say that someone with a weapon is threatening your loved one—a child, or a husband or a wife. Well, if you had a gun you might pull that trigger in order to save your loved one’s life. You and I might not condone that kind of thing, but I’m sure we can at least understand it. Or, let’s take another example. If you were suddenly awakened in the middle of the night by an intruder threatening your life and you had a chance to kill him to save yourself, and you killed him—well, I think we can all understand how that might happen. And that wouldn’t make us desperate criminals or evil people, would it? It was something we did in the heat of the moment.” Di Silva’s voice hardened. “But cold-blooded murder is something else again. To take the life of another human being, without the excuse of any feelings or passions, to do it for money or drugs or the sheer pleasure of killing—”